


Pellucid.

by inactive_account



Category: OMORI (Video Game)
Genre: (but he didnt), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Future, Bad Writing, Comfort, Drowning, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hero Left His Glass of Water on the Counter and Pissed Mari Off, How Do I Tag, In a sense, Mari and Hero are in College, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, SunFlower if u squint, Tactile Hallucinations, divergence as in the story never happened, fuck how do i tag again, ish, ive decided to start calling them the Trauma Troupe, oh yeah, uhh, w.. would that be ptsd? please help
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-14 20:13:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29301702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inactive_account/pseuds/inactive_account
Summary: With clarity as overt as the waters fresh from the peak of a mountain, she remembers.
Relationships: Aubrey & Basil & Hero & Kel & Sunny (OMORI), Basil & Sunny (OMORI), Hero/Mari (OMORI)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 85





	Pellucid.

**Author's Note:**

> yknow that feeling when youre sad but youre not sad so all you can do is sit and stare at a wall until youre like "ah yes, water metaphors." and then it slowly evolved into 3 rewrites before you realize that the peak of what water metaphors consisted of happened 2 and a half rewrites ago so you just vomit conflicted feelings out onto Windows 10 Sticky Notes
> 
> yeah, me neither. anyway, enjoy.

Mari sighs, edge of her pencil tapping lightly on unmarked staff paper. A silly romcom plays in the background and her head bumps Hero's chest as she falls slack again, the arms safely tucking her underneath his chin soothingly rubbing her stomach, shielded from sight by her binder. "Taking another break?" Hums Hero, the timbre of his voice thrumming through his chest bringing a small smile to Mari's thin lips. "Just having another moment. Sometimes it seems like I'm not cut out for this," She sighs and she doesn't need to look up to know the brune is frowning. "... Well, looks like the tables have turned now, haven't they? According to Margaret S., 'you shouldn't put yourself down like that, it's only that kind of thinking that stops you from being your best'." Mari's head droops in bemusement, "You don't get to use that one against me, that was only to get you to remake that bread you burnt before the dinner party!"

"But it worked, didn't it? My parents had no clue we had to remake something," He hums meaningfully, the girl in his arms casting a long glance back to the notation in her lap. "I suppose so... But even then, this time my professor is _making_ me compose for piano. I've never even touched a violin and that's all my portfolio is full of. Just... Things Sunny would've liked to play."

There's a brief period of silence, familiar, but its never allowed to settle as long as Hero is there first, him leaning down to press a kiss to the crown of Mari's head. "You know Sunny wouldn't play unless you were playing with him, too. You both are two parts of the same story, after all, never complete without the other. If you can't compose something out of the blue like you usually can, try going back and finishing one of those tales." Mari hesitates as she stares at the dancing notes scribbled, erased, redrawn, gripping her pencil before laying it flat against a crescendo. "I don't... I don't think I could do that, Hero. I mean, I could but... I would cry, y'know? If I made a piano part for something that was supposed to be just _us_ and I'd hear it being played by some one else. Or - or worse, the violin part completely forgotten, I couldn't stand for it!"

Mari twists around to face her lover, dark eyes glimmering with emotion and bottom lip raised. Hero flinched, eyebrows scrunching in regret. "Ah, sorry, I just thought... It was an idea, I thought it would help."

"Oh... Oh, no, I'm not upset with you, Hero! I'm sorry, I'm just."

"... I understand."

The girl gives a breathy laugh, knuckling away at her eyes as she recovers swiftly, like she always did. "I was always so strong about piano when we were kids. Sunny played so quiet back then, I was always drowning his sound out with my own. It would make me feel bad, y'know? Like me forgetting about his sound all that time ago translated into how much I miss it now. If it was published like that." Hero remained silent for some time, almond eyes caring as he began rubbing circles into Mari's belly again. "I wish I tried harder for him. Paid more attention to him. Maybe he'd still be playing today and we could play together each time we visited like he wanted us to before. I get so sad seeing his violin in a dusty case."

"It was his choice," Hero murmurs against her hair, but they both know it went deeper than that. "Do you work this weekend?" Mari asks, voice rising once more. "No, why?"

"I know it's a little sudden."

"When are you not?"

"Hehehe... Could we go back home for the weekend?"

"What about your assignment?"

"That's why I want to go home. Well, part of the reason anywho."

"I guess I don't see an issue with it, though everyone would probably want to do everything at once again."

"Well _I_ really want to see if Aubrey held up her end of the deal. It wasn't cheap, getting my hair coloured like this y'know!" Mari laughs, lifting a lock of bayalage purple. "I did offer to help," Hero chuckles with a passive smile, once more pressing his nose to her hair. He deeply admired how strong a resolve she held, but as he watches her tuck her work into the binder as another quip flies past, often he wonders what she thinks about when she's alone.

"I'll go ahead and put the packed bags in the car," Hero calls out from the dormitory hallway, receiving an 'mh-hm!' from Mari as she finishes filling her last pack - the satchel she carried all her important stuff within. Mostly musically orientated, naturally, because she had three classes that resolved around her major, one French class that took up a single folder within the pack, and two rather irrelevant electives only held on to for the credits.

Irrelevant were the electives still as she slid her satchel flap close, the click of it locking into place announcing the end to their morning gathering. With a triumphant huff, Mari tucks the stool she had been sitting on under the counter, the glimmer of sunlight hitting a leftover glass on top of it catching her eye soon after. "Oh! Augh. Hero, you dunce," She exasperates playfully, realizing that her boyfriend had forgotten his glass of water before leaving for the vehicle, but soon mesmerized as a thick droplet of condensation streams down its smooth side. Painfully familiar, settling all too well like it shouldn't have when Hero was there, almost like she could feel the trickle of water running down her own skin. Dripping from her hair.

_You're sodden._

Cold and stirring and weighing a-thousand-and-one pounds all at once.

_Two bodies shiver against you. One lays limp on your lap._

A burning tightness around her lungs, an invisible pressure over her head.

_'Wake up! Please, wake up!!'_

The water was murky that overcast day, but she had never saw more clearly. She should've tried harder, she thinks with trembling hands.

_'Be careful, you two!' You cry out to the blonde hurrying down the pier with your brother in tow, Basil's brilliant blue eyes shining with glee. 'Don't worry, Mari! I'll keep him safe!' You recognized how Sunny's cheeks grew rosy with his friend's promise and your smile grew infinitely wider._

_You always kept three things in mind when going places with Sunny. One, Sunny got dizzy when up too high. Two, he wouldn't go into a room if there was a spider in it. And three, Sunny couldn't swim._

_It was a cloudy day without a ray of sun to be seen, but Kel and Aubrey had come knocking at your door with Hero huffing after them and Basil supporting him, begging to go to the beach piers. 'But it's so gloomy out!' You had protested. Sunny was on the couch behind you, and soon he was worming his way behind you to give his hellos to his friends. As soon as he realized that they were inviting them some place, he turned his pleading eyes on you, and you couldn't resist. When you thought about it now, you couldn't help but to feel a little proud on how Sunny overcame his hesitance when stepping onto the old douglas-fir piers, and you trusted Basil to be able to keep him from falling into the water by accident._

_You weren't given much chance to worry either way, Aubrey tugging you by the sleeve to come down to the sandy area underneath the piers where mollusks and scallops and cockles and all sorts of shelled critters clapped and blew bubbles at. Hero manages to grab ahold of a King Scallop, showing Aubrey it's flat ocean-burnished shell while Kel flounders to catch a tide fish or a crab with his bare hands. Chance of him succeeding was slim, the water was an inky lick mirroring the skies, but his effort was always admired._

_You should have questioned it more when an ominous sound, loud and reverberating lifted the four of your heads from playing in the sand and digging for clams and geoduck. 'Hey, what time is it?' You had been in the middle of asking when the noise started with a crack that could've split the sky, dissolving into something similar to a tree falling and the hiss of ocean water spraying afterward. 'What... Was that?'_

_'Yeah, that was weird!' Kel follows after you. 'OH! Do you think it could've been a whale?!' Aubrey excitedly gasps. 'I don't think whales sound like that,' Hero mumbled softly, concern clearly etched into his posture now. Sunny and Basil flash into your mind with a brief moment of panic and then you calm yourself quickly after, remembering Basil's words. You trusted him, Sunny and Basil were inseparable anyway. Had something happened to the either of them, they had each other._

_The reassurance you found in the fact lasted but a moment before it was shattered by a faint cry. Everyone stilled, your heart launched into your throat. 'Did... Did anyone else hear that?' The cry rang again. 'Something happened-' You breathe, Hero grasping your hand to keep you from bolting up the pier ladder, 'Wait a sec.' So you wait. And wait. And itch in place, seconds crawling by, sand under your clothes suddenly making its existence known._

_'... eeeelp...!!!'_

_It's Basil!' You gasp, ripping from Hero and hardly using the ladder to get onto the pier. Something's happened, they're in danger. Sunny's in danger, Basil's in danger, you should've gone with them, you should've kept them close, you should've- 'This way, Mari!' Kel yells, sprinting in front of you and leading you through the maze of piers. You register that its not just your footsteps banging against the wood, but Aubrey's close behind and Hero's unsteady ones. '... please...!!! someone...!!!' Basil's plea grows and you push forward, nearly matching Kel's pace, breath punched from your chest and by the time pale-golden hair reaches your sight you're out of breath but holy fuck. You knew this pier. The first bit of pier ever built here, there was a gazebo at the end of it, or..._

_There used to be._

_Now it was half it's length the wood tapering off looking positively shredded as the water around it is decorated with drifting, decayed wood, and Basil clings to the last beam of it like his life depended on it, hair flattened and soaked._

_Hero and Kel rush forward to pull Basil up from the water and onto the safer bits of the pier, you and Aubrey hurrying to coddle and soothe him - except you're not. You clasp his cold cheeks in your hands, his wild eyes on yours, and you swore you saw someone flinch from the corner of your eye when you demanded, 'Where's Sunny.' Basil didn't answer right away, eyes flicking to the ragged end of the pier, but that's all you needed. It was more than you ever needed. And off your layers went until the only thing you were in was an undershirt and the shorts you were under your skirt, gulping as much air as you could before you dove into the water, an inky lick that mirrored the sky._

_Salt stung your eyes, tickled your nose. You couldn't see. You resurface. Breathe in, breathe out, gasp, dive again. Your hair is soaked, it's painfully cold, you still can't see, so you resurface again. Breathe in, breathe out, gasp, dive again. You can't see. You're running out of time. Where's Sunny. Where's Sunny. Resurface. Breathe in, out, gasp, dive. Push this time, go down further, past the murk, find Sunny. Voices batter the rippling surface, you flail about desperately, trying to squint through the dark haze. Where's Sunny._

_Resurface. Breathe in, out, in, out, gasp, dive, push. It's taking too long, why can't you find him? Resurface. Breathe in, out, in, out - 'Mari!!' - gasp - 'Call an ambulance!!' - dive, push, push. No Sunny. Where's Sunny. Where's Sunny? Where's your brother? Resurface, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out - 'MARI!' And you pause just briefly when Basil's muddled voice reaches you past the water in your ears. 'THE GAZEBO!' And you never were much of a swimmer, only learned because it could save your life. Save a life. But you've never pushed yourself so hard to get to that spot, where it used to be. You inhaled a sob before submerging, pushed down, pushed farther, past the murk. Past the haze. It was dark, so very dark, until it wasn't, and you could see as clear as if you were looking through the glass of a window. The gazebo, collapsed, clouds of sand swirling still after its descent into the ocean. Sunny, your pale little brother who shared your locks and eyes, drifting limp before it, a gentle current sweeping his hair like a whisper, a motion you used to soothe him to sleep._

_You reach for him, grab him by his cold, small hand, and lift him with you, haul him past the layer of murk above you, shoulder him onto your back so he stayed above water, using the waves to bring you back to the pier. Sunny goes up first, thank god they understand, and then you haul yourself out as much as you can before Hero is there lifting you. Water clogged your ears, the shocked chatter around you incomprehensible around you, but you crawl to him, shaking, lay him on his back. Twining your fingers, resting the heels of your hands on his chest, trying your hardest to resuscitate him._

_He's pale, oh so pale, worse than what you thought so under water. Skin clammy and near blue, he's cold, unresponsive, but you can't let him go. The mutterings around you die down, a warm pressure against your side and the sob you swallowed before comes back wracking you. 'C'mon, c'mon,' You whimper, pausing to tilt his head back, pinch his nose, breathe a bit of life back into him, start up again. Someone else leans against your other side supportively. Nothing's happening. Why won't it work? 'S-Sunny, c-c'mon. C'mon wake u-up,' You croak, leaning down to breathe into him once more. It's not working, sirens are wailing. Your arms hurt, your everything hurts. Desperate. 'S-Sunny. Sunny, come on... C'mere... C-come to Mari..! C-come to y-your big s-sis, c'mon... Come ba-ack to me, Sunny...' Hero whispers something to you. You can't understand him. Water in your ears. 'Sunny, w-wake up. Please, god, wake u-up.'_

_The sirens are louder, and distantly you realize you've known you're losing him. You're losing him, Sunny, your little brother of priceless worth, your irreplaceable friend, countless times of laughter and joy and sadness and frustration slipping through your fingers like the sand caving in on Kel's Beach Holes. Cookies and Bedtime Stories and Picnics and Treehouse Time and Breakfast-in-Bed when one caught the flu, Sliced Watermelon in the sun and under the couch playing Hide and Seek, waking up in the middle of the night to Sunny's night terrors and the screech his string made when he played his first ever note on violin, delicate hands on yours as he felt you pour your soul into the keyboard before you._

_You cradle him close regardless, arms too weak to continue pumping his chest. Instead you tuck them around him, a hand cupping his cheek, another running through his salt-slicken hair. Your vision blurs and you're less than half certain that you're on the dry pier and not underwater, drifting with him too._

_The autopsy the paramedic relays to you says that it took only eleven minutes for him to go. Hero tightens the blanket around you in his effort to make you feel better, but it certainly didn't make it hurt any less. Eleven minutes had Sunny suffered. Eleven minutes earlier, he would've survived. If you had been better, if you had tried harder, maybe eleven minutes wouldn't have been significant. If you had gotten up when the sound of the gazebo collapsing, if you had been better and known about how old the pier was, if you had tried harder to make sure Basil and Sunny would be safer, if you had been stronger and told everyone 'no' when they showed up at the door today, eleven minutes wouldn't have existed._

_it doesn't rain until after dinner at home, after your father guides your mother back to their room in silence, after you wash the dishes and clean the table and do everything in your power to procrastinate going upstairs. it rains when you're forced to open the door to your room and gather things for a shower, when you spot your bed tidy and clean as always and Sunny's blanket flipped over, the Photo Album cracked open and freshly decorated with fun doodles. like a still life frozen in time, you expected your smaller sibling to come bounding around the corner and scrambling to finish what he started. when thunder breaks the silence, it breaks you, too._

"Mari?" Hero calls from the doorway, a stunned girl turning to him with shock in her eyes and tears down her cheeks. He halts a second longer it takes to discern, then with a quiet sigh, joins her side in a few short strides and offers her his embrace. "If it's too much, you know we don't have to go. I don't mind, the others would understand-" But Hero's silenced when Mari locks her arms around him like an iron fist, pressing her face into his chest and letting his sweater soak up the remnants of her memories before she'd speak again. "No, no, I want to go, I just."

"... That's alright... I think about it too."

"Hahaha... Augh, I'm a little pathetic, aren't I? Four years and I still get misty-eyed at a glass of water," Mari groans, chuckling weakly as she shifts laying her ear flat to her lover. His thumb strokes along her cheekbone, carrying with it dried laments of years past. "That's not pathetic, Mari."

"Well it is funny, no? Just a bit?"

"I-"

"Oh no please don't wave me a glass of water! It reminds me of my dead brother!" The brune locks his jaw in his elbow, a nasal crackling slowly escaping as he tries to repress his laughter. "Mari, that - that's awful."

"It is! that's _why_ it's funny!" A few moments pass voluntarily allowing them each their time to recover. "But really, all's good?"

"Yes, Hero, you big softie. All's good." Mari reaches up with the lift of her heels to press her lips rewardingly to Hero's cheek, earning her bashful smile. "Still, you flush? You are really soft! And tall too, shrink an inch."

"If milady wants it, her wish be my command." And up she's hauled into his arms with a squeal of delight, glass abandoned atop the counter as they parade out of their dorm.

  
  
"Hey, Hero, I think I know what I want to do first when we get there," Mari hums as she's carried out into the morning light. "It'll be near dusk," he informs. "All the better. Sunny liked dusk more," She replies wistfully. "Are you suggesting a picnic?" Hero asks as he stops before the car. "Whatever else would I be talking about?"

"Even now you throw them like paper to the wind."

"Ahaha! Silly, you should know, Mr. Foodservice Industry! You don't need extravagant food to have a good time, just plenty of snacks for everyone and a warm spot to nap in!"

"Where would this warm spot be, then?"

"I think Sunny would enjoy everyone's company again."

**Author's Note:**

> if you made it this far thank you youre a real one <3
> 
> remember how i said earlier that i never ever had a really specific experience revolving around water metaphors and writing until i gave up writing?
> 
> i LIED!


End file.
